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Durham E-Theses Serial struggles : English Catholics and their periodicals,1648-1844 Richardson, Paul Alexander How to cite: Richardson, Paul Alexander (2003) Serial struggles : English Catholics and their periodicals,1648-1844, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1082/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk Serial Struggles: English Catholics and Their Periodicals, 1648-1844 Paul Alexander Richardson Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Durham Department of Theology 2003 The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should bepub1ished without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. -1OCT 2003 Paul Alexander Richardson Serial Struggles: English Catholics and Their Periodicals, 1648-1844 Doctor of Philosophy 2003 Abstract From the mid-seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, the English Catholic community showed its robustness, resilience and complexity through its own periodical press. The subject, however, has been relatively neglected, specialist research amounts only to a bare handful of studies, and a full and definitive study which exploits the wealth of available materials has not yet been written. This thesis is therefore intended to present what has long been overdue, the first full chronological account of the foundation and development of the English Catholic periodical press from the Mercurius Catholicus to the Dublin Review. The work also serves specifically as a balance to Susan J. Acheson who argued in 1981, in her Oxford M.Litt. thesis on Victorian Catholic journalism, that the Emancipation Act of 1829 was the single most important influence on the Catholic periodical press in England. Against Acheson, my study shows that the Catholic periodical , press did not owe its life to one major event early in the nineteenth century, but was rather the result of the religio-political activity which accompanied a long and difficult struggle for relief measures begun nearly two hundred years before. In describing the attempts by Catholics, often in difficult conditions and hostile circumstances, to develop a regular literary means of representing , and defending themselves, my thesis does not avoid the fact that the periodicals were often sustained and made exciting by internecine quarrels and struggles. Indeed, it concentrates on the tension between two groups of Catholics, about whether to stress division from or similarity with a Protestant state and society, which marked the early history of the English Catholic periodical press, and concludes that the final victory belonged to the party which emphasised distinctiveness over eirenicism. In loving memory of my grandparents John Mitchell Richardson (1919-1996) Mary Ellen Richardson (1923-1984) George Cecil Spoors (1907-1985) Isabella Spoors (1909-1962) Contents Declaration and Statement of Copyright 1 Abbreviations 2 Preface 4 I. Origins (1648-1689) 10 I!. Revival (1689-1813) 49 III. Emancipation (18 13-1830) 90 IV. Priesthood (1830-1836) 148 V. Settlement (1836-1843) 201 Finale (1844) 245 Appendix: A Catalogue of English Catholic Periodicals, 1648-1844 255 Bibliography 283 Declaration and Statement of Copyright This thesis conforms with the prescribed word length for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, for which it has been submitted for examination. No part of this work has been presented before for a degree offered by Durham University or by any other establishment. Material from the work of other scholars has been acknowledged and quotations clearly indicated. The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published without his prior written consent and information derived from it should be acknowledged. Paul Alexander Richardson August 2003 Abbreviations AAW Archives of the Archdiocese of Westminster ABSI Archivum Britannicum Societatis lesu [Jesuit Archives, London] BAA Birmingham Archdiocesan Archives BL British Libraiy BP Bramston Papers CA Cal ho/ic Advocate CBL Charles Butler Letterbook CGM Catholic Gentleman's Magazine Cf Catholic Journal CM Catholic Miscellany CMR Catholic Magazine and Review [1831-1835] cP Coghlan Papers CS Catholic Spectator CSM Council of State Minutes CSP Dom Calendar of State Papers Domestic CUL Cambridge University Library DAEA Diocesan Archives of East Anglia DNB (eds.) Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee, Dictionary of National Biography 22 vols (London, 1885- 1901) DP Douglass Papers DR Dublin Review DRP Dublin Review Papers Fitzgerald-Lombard Charles Fitzgerald-Lombard, English and Welsh Priests 1801-1914 (Bath, 1993) Gil/ow Joseph Gillow, A Literary and Biographical History, or Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics: From the Breach with Rome, in 1534, to the Present Time 5 vols (London, 1885-1903) GM Gentleman 's Magazine 2 HMC Historical Manuscripts Commission hA Irish Jesuit Archives LDA Leeds Diocesan Archives LDOJ London and Dublin Orthodox Journal of Useful Knowledge LP Lingard Papers LPTDI The Loyal Protestant and True Domestick Intelligence LRO Lancashire Record Office ML Mimer Letters N DA Northampton Diocesan Archives OJ Orthodox Journal PCR Privy Council Records PP Poynter Papers PRO Public Record Office RH Recusani History SECP St Edmund's College Papers sP State Papers TDJ The Domestick Intelligence and The True Domestick Intelligence TP Tierney Papers UCA Ushaw College Archives wP Wiseman Papers 3 Preface From the mid-seventeenth century to the mid-nineteenth century, the English Catholic community showed its robustness, resilience and complexity through its own periodical press. However, a full and definitive account of the subject, which exploits the wealth of available unpublished and primary materials, has surprisingly not yet been written. As early as 1882, the celebrated Jesuit scholar, Herbert Thurston,' identified the need for a work like this and issued an indirect challenge for someone to write a general history of the early Catholic periodical press in England.2 Thurston was clearly not satisfied with the thumbnail sketches which another priest, Frederick Charles Husenbeth, 3 had published in 1867 of the kind of publications that this thesis is concerned with, the various annual almanacs, quarterly reviews, monthly magazines and weekly newspapers which Catholics had compiled, edited and published to communicate news and information to their co-religionists, and to prc*note Catholicism to a Protestant audience.4 Nor was Thurston apparently taken with the bare outline, from 1881, of early nineteenth-century Catholic journalism by the renowned bibliographer, Joseph Gillow, who foresaw a time when the 'historian of Catholicity in this country, during the first half of this century, will undoubtedly have to refer to the current literature of the period'. 5 Like 1-lusenbeth, Gillow made his list of Catholic periodicals for a very good reason, as he explained: I have long deplored the negligence and carelessness shown by those who have the charge of our large libraries in collecting the periodical publications of the Catholic press. It does not seem surprising to me that there should not exist in the British Museum Library a perfect set of the magazines issued by the Catholic body previous to the passing of the Emancipation Act, when I have reason to believe that there is not such a collection in any of the libraries of our great colleges. A little publicity on this point may perhaps do For whom, see Joseph Crehan, Father Thurston (London, 1952). 2 Herbert Thurston, An Old-Established Periodical', Month, XLIV, February 1882, p. 157. Born in 1796, Husenbeth trained for the priesthood at Oscott College and was ordained in 1820. Soon after, he was appointed as missioner at Cossey in Norfolk and remained there until his death in 1872. See Gil/ow, III, pp. 492-507. Frederick Charles 1-lusenbeth, 'Catholic Periodicals', Notes and Queries, 3d Series, XI, 5 January 1867, pp. 2-4; 12 January 1867, pp. 29-3 1. Joseph Gillow, 'Early Catholic Periodicals', Tablet, LVII, 29 January 1881, pp. 181-182; 5 February 1881, p. 220; 12 February 1881, pp. 259-260; 19 February 1881, p. 301; 26 February 1881, pp. 341- 342. Quotation from p. 342. 4 much good, and in some measure prevent, by calling attention to the want in time, what would otherwise speedily prove an irreparable loss.' This same motive of recording just the most essential information about the works that could be traced before they were lost forever prompted John R. Fletcher's 1936 article on the English Catholic periodical press.2 But this again did not answer Thurston's call for a major study, as Fletcher had simply conflated Husenbeth and Gillow's two lists, and he had done this without correcting their mistakes or adding flesh to the basic bibliographical details. Two other twentieth-century studies have also fallen short of what Thurston wanted. In a chapter of his book on the general reiigious press in Britain, Josef L. Altholz gives an overview of Catholic periodicals published after 1760 which unfortunately ignores entirely the seventeenth-century origins of Catholic journalism. 3 The fullest general account of early Catholic periodical literature that we have is Susan J. Acheson's thesis, 4 a thematic rather than chronological examination of the subject, which cannot, however, claim to be definitive because it pays scanty attention to the earliest periodicals.